The Clock People

by Mark Roland Langdale

  ‘Wind us all up, old man, you’re already doing a first class job of that!’ Apprentice Percy Peppercorn huffed under his breath as he slid down a ladder, barely touching the sides.

  Already there were stories flying around the mechanism of what terrible things had happened to the two apprentices. One story went they had sailed over the edge of the mechanism in a steam-powered clock boat into a giant sea filled with thick soup-like motor oil. Nobody was buying that story!

  ‘Yes, yes sir, right away sir,’ the apprentices stuttered as one, getting back to work.

  ‘It seems daydreaming is spreading like a disease amongst the young. I can envisage a day when the clock is empty and eventually stops, as does the history of the Clock People,’ Cadmore Carbuncle III, one of the Clock Elders, sighed.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid you may well be right. It’s a pity we can’t turn the clock back,’ sighed Omnigus Prattles nodding his head in agreement.

  ‘Only storytellers have the power to turn back the clock,’ Carbuncle mused.

  If the two men only knew that in the blinking of an eye the clock had been turned back a hundred years and they had got their wish. But alas, they did not or at least not as yet!

  Time moved on… tick tock, tick tock, tick…

  23

  The Chronicles of a Chronometer

  ‘Excuse me, sir, I couldn’t trouble you for the time could I?’ a refined-looking gentleman enquired.

  ‘Of, of course,’ replied the thief a little startled at the man’s sudden appearance which broke him from his reverie, a posh way of saying his daydreams, as the man looked posh through the eyes of our thief.

  The thief eyed the man up and down. Perhaps he wasn’t a toff but a common thief like he was – a thief to catch a thief. Or perhaps like him he had stepped out of the mists of time – a time-travelling detective! Could it be this was an elaborate plot engineered by the constabulary, a sting, a honey trap, and he was about to get stung? But no, this man was of good character, the thief could tell that from his appearance, his manner and the gentle way he spoke. It was strange to think the thief could judge whether a man was good or bad simply by looking him up and down. He had seen plenty of lowlifes in his time, he only had to look in the mirror to recognise such men!

  ‘Nice chronometer,’ the man said coolly as the thief took out his watch and put it on display.

  ‘Yes, isn’t she something. A rare beauty, a jewel of high society, one I picked out of the jewel box in the heavens above,’ the thief replied as if he wasn’t a common thief at all but an artisan who had just flown over from Paris in an airship, first class all the way. The dirigible even had a restaurant onboard and a sleep compartment and served champagne in the bar, a lounge lizard seeing to his every whim as a pianist in a white tuxedo tickled the ivories for the pleasure of the idle rich. The truth was it made the thief feel special to own such a valuable timepiece. He no longer felt like a thief but a man of some standing in society. The trouble was, he was standing on shaky ground. The sands of time were shifting under his feet and he was not even aware of it.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. The face is quite exquisite,’ the man continued. It was as if both the men were talking about a beautiful woman rather than a watch.

  ‘Yes, it’s the only one like it in the whole world. The face is made of moonstone and it never requires repairing.’

  ‘A self-repairing watch? I’ve never heard of the like!’ the man exclaimed.

  ‘Sorry, I must go, I need to be somewhere,’ the thief said quickly thrusting the fob watch back in his pocket and walking away in a hurried manner. He had said too much but he couldn’t help himself. What good was such a prize if one could not show it off? ‘One’ – now he was giving himself the airs and graces of a London dandy or a lord of the manor. He laughed to himself but he must be more careful next time. A thief could not do his job properly if he became notorious or infamous. Being Raffles was all fine and dandy in the storybooks but in real life it made you a target. A thief must remain in the shadows with the Shadow Wind or he would soon find himself in shadow of a different kind – that of a dark, dank prison cell.

  The thief was back on familiar territory so why did he feel such a sense of unease? Somehow he felt differently as if he were no longer the hunter but the hunted. Instead of picking an easy mark he imagined now he was the easy mark, carrying such an expensive timepiece around with him as he was. But at least he knew where the piece was. He couldn’t leave it at his rented accommodation. What if a thief broke in and stole it? At least he knew all the tricks of the trade that pickpockets employed to stay one step ahead of the long arm of the law. He should avoid all busy streets and if some common type walked his way he should cross the street to avoid him.

  A curious thought then occurred to the thief: it was as if he had felt compelled to show the man the watch against his better judgment. Was the watch so powerful that it could compel the owner to do things against their will? Well, that was the story he would tell his barrister if he ever got caught with such a valuable timepiece in his possession, he mused.

  Maybe the watch didn’t like its rough new owner and was trying its level best to make sure he got caught so it would find a new home – that of a gentleman of class, a horologist who really appreciated such a special complication. Or could it be the original watchmaker of this magical timepiece had put a spell, an enchantment of some kind, on the watch to protect it? For he knew that one day, time being against him as it was all of us, he would no longer be around to protect it. Of course the thief knew nothing of the Clock People and the Clock People knew nothing of the thief, all apart from the two apprentices Tippy Handle and Wilbur Wigglesworth.

  So far the watch had been his good fortune, but what if his luck changed and the watch became his bad fortune? If he believed in fortune tellers the thief would have gone to one and after gazing into a crystal ball they would have told him whether to hold onto his lucky charm or get rid of it quick smart. Well, if he greased their palms with silver, quicksilver, that way he wouldn’t have to pay too high a price for his continued good fortune!

  ‘Look, it’s the thief!’ exclaimed Tippy standing on tiptoes upon the windowsill as she pointed excitedly down to the street below.

  ‘He’s got a beard, are you sure that’s our man?’ Wilbur replied trying to see the face with the scar emblazoned upon it like a tattoo, the face that was etched upon his mind in pieces of broken stained glass, the face he’d seen in the jeweller’s shop window, the one that kept appearing in his nightmares wearing a death mask scaring him half to death!

  ‘Yes, I never forget a face, despite trying to hide behind that beard, though with that scar he looks like a pirate, a well-dressed pirate it has to be said, but a pirate nevertheless. Maybe he has a tattoo of a dragon snaking around his arm or a dagger thrust through a heart on his chest. It seems the storybooks were right. A thief always returns to the scene of the crime!’ exclaimed Tippy gabbling in manic fashion as she turned to Wilbur with her eyes ablaze. ‘Quickly, sound the alarm, sound the alarm!’

  ‘Give me a hand then, the marble’s heavier than I imagined. It feels like I’m Atlas pushing the world through a beach made of quicksand!’ grunted Wilbur. He tried manfully to push the green and blue crystal marble off the window ledge hoping it would fall into the copper pan placed just below the windowsill and alert Scarlet and Alfie. But try as he might, Wilbur could not manage to budge the marble. It was just too heavy for one person to move and although at times Wilbur had a will of iron he was no iron man like Hercules, not even a miniature version of the mighty strong man.

  ‘I’m here, push, push!’ Tippy cried putting her shoulder against the marble. Wilbur and Tippy heaved and heaved until the marble started to move and little by little, as it did so, it started to get up a good head of steam. The marble rolled along the windowsill like a penny in an arcade game before droppi
ng like a stone. The green and blue crystal marble hit the copper pan and bounced several times, causing a loud musical bell-like note followed by a softer one. In truth the note was one more of discord than harmony, as if a giant hammer had struck an old rusty bell in a ruined Gothic church. However, to Wilbur and Tippy this clanging sound was like music to the ears.

  ‘Did you hear something?!’ exclaimed Scarlet tidying her mother’s kitchen as instructed as Alfie got under her feet as per usual.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the ticking sound of your mind working overtime that was for sure. I think it came from the bedroom,’ Alfie said dryly.

  ‘It’s the alarm, the time bell, they’ve spied the thief!’ Scarlet shouted dropping the saucepan in the sink, which made another loud clanging sound as Scarlet ran into the bedroom, Alfie hot on her heels.

  ‘Did, did you see him, did, did you see the thief?’ cried Scarlet almost tripping over her own tongue in the excitement to get the words out.

  Wilbur held up a sign with the word YES written upon it in red ink, one of Tippy’s ideas to communicate with the giants. She had managed to extract the red pencil from Scarlet’s pencil tin and with the help of Wilbur had managed to write the word out in large capital letters followed by an exclamation mark. The word was a little wobbly it had to be said. It certainly wouldn’t win any prizes at a calligraphy competition at school. The more likely story was it would get a derogatory comment from the teacher in red ink saying ‘Must try harder!’

  ‘How clever of you little people to think of such an idea. You may be little but you certainly think big!’ Scarlet smiled looking as proud as punch that her little people had come up trumps yet again.

  Scarlet looked out of the window, scouring the street for a man with a scar on the side of his cheek, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Perhaps he had disappeared like a thief in the night, like a cat burglar. Or maybe he was a magician like Merlin who could transform himself from a man into a cat or a man into a dragon like Timaeus in the Atlantis story.

  ‘Look over there, over there, the man with the scar, he’s talking to another man, and now look he’s showing him a watch!’

  Try as they might, jumping up and down Wilbur and Tippy could not see, as by now the street was full of people. Scarlet could see their frustration so without saying a word she carefully picked them up one by one and placed them on her hand. Then she held out her hand so Wilbur and Tippy could get a bird’s eye view of the street below. Scarlet just hoped the birds didn’t think she was trying to feed them!

  ‘Yes, there he is and there’s our house, he’s showing that man our house!’ Tippy cried making it sound as if not only did the thief steal their home but now he was trying to sell it to someone!

  Scarlet could see Tippy and Wilbur gesticulating wildly at a cake shop on the other side of the road halfway down the street. Then she saw the man with the scar. ‘He’s going, we need to follow him!’ Scarlet cried almost falling out of the window and dropping Tippy and Wilbur in the process.

  ‘Hold on!’ Tippy grunted, holding onto Wilbur for dear life as he started to slide across the palm of Scarlet’s hand. But they had no need to worry as Scarlet screwed her fist into a ball and pulled herself back in the nick of time.

  ‘Oops, that was a close call, sorry about that, I got a little carried away!’ Scarlet exclaimed opening her clenched fist to make sure she hadn’t crushed the little people. Wilbur and Tippy were still in the land of the living, waving at her frantically as if on a desert island and signalling a passing ship, so she knew they must be alright.

  ‘Where are you going to put the little people?!’ Alfie exclaimed itching to get the adventure started.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Scarlet replied trying to think on her feet.

  ‘He’s getting away. By the time we get down to the street he will have disappeared!’ Alfie exclaimed.

  ‘I’ll, I’ll put them in the matchbox. No, they might get crushed. I know, I’ll put them in Pa’s snuffbox,’ Scarlet replied.

  ‘Won’t they suffocate?’ Alfie replied looking concerned, a look Scarlet had rarely seen on her brother’s dirty face.

  ‘They won’t be in there for long. I can open the box every few minutes so they won’t suffocate,’ huffed Scarlet rather haughtily as she rushed into her parents’ bedroom to retrieve the snuffbox. Scarlet searched for the snuffbox but couldn’t find it. Perhaps her father had taken it with him to work. Her father was only downstairs in the hat shop, but still it would take too long and how was she going to explain why she wanted a snuffbox? ‘Oh Father, you’re so silly at times. Why, I want to clear my nose! Summer colds can be so irritating, don’t you agree?!’

  Tick tock, tick tock, tick…

  24

  The Plan’s Running

  Like Clockwork

  Time was running out, as was the thief. The matchbox would just have to do. She would wrap it in a thick handkerchief and place it carefully in her inside pocket, and hope to God nobody ran into them on the busy street. Either that or she could leave them behind, but that seemed cruel on the little people. She tried to put herself in their shoes – not easy, it had to be said. She’d want to be a part of trying to bring this thief to justice. If the thief was the notorious Victorian villain Spring-Heeled Jack that would be easier said than done. This villain was even more cunning than Spring-Heeled Jack or Raffles, this was the Time Thief, a man who Scarlet imagined could manipulate time. She hoped this was not the case! Scarlet, Alfie and her parents were living in Blackfriars which was like living in another country to the areas of Mayfair and Park Lane, or so her father joked as there was a street named Holland Street close by.

  ‘He’s getting away. Time for plan B, no make that a return to plan A,’ Alfie spat, not making much sense until he picked up the paper plane, put the little people in it and launched it out the window in the direction of where the thief had been standing not a minute ago. ‘Remember to steer her, you need to lean one way or the other as one,’ shouted Alfie crossing his fingers and hoping for the best. No point in hoping for the worst, not this time. Silly as it seems, sometimes Alfie did hope for the worst – hoping the worst would befall his sister after she had got one over on him. Sometimes Alfie called his sister a ‘Suffering Jet’, meaning one of the Suffragette Movement like Emmeline Pankhurst, as to his mind she could be insufferable at times, was always right and always, but always, had to have the last word, which is why Alfie had taken to stuffing cotton wool in his ears when he was winding his sister up like a clockwork doll. Scarlet did not think she was always right, it was simply she thought Alfie was always in the wrong!

  ‘Alfie!’ exclaimed Scarlet as she saw the paper aeroplane fly out the window and onto the street below.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s the finest paper areoplane ever made – aerodynamically sound, flies like a dream, designed by yours truly. It’s virtually uncrashable. Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers would be proud to call it their own work!’ Alfie said beaming from ear to ear.

  ‘Now what are you doing?’ Scarlet cried nearly tearing out her hair.

  ‘Giving them a helping hand, nothing wrong with that, is there?!’ Alfie grinned picking up a pair of fire bellows then leaning out the window as he helped the paper plane on its way.

  Tippy and Wilbur were too shocked to reply, they just held on for dear life hoping for a safe landing.

  ‘Come on, Alfie, they need our help!’ Scarlet screamed pulling her brother with her in the direction of the stairs.

  ‘Adventure!’ cried Alfie punching the air, sounding like any number of storybook heroes he had read about.

  ‘Lean to the left, lean to the left!’ Wilbur exclaimed as his co-pilot did as she was instructed, although Tippy wanted to be the pilot, the one giving the instructions. Tippy had never been good at receiving instructions, she was too strong-willed. She thought she knew better as her grandmother was always tellin
g anyone who would listen. The thing was, she often was right and why should she cow down to anyone simply because she was young and she was a girl? She was sounding like Scarlet now, who she was already beginning to look up to in more ways than one. Alfie’s jibes of Scarlet being one of the Suffering Jets was pie in the sky as far as Scarlet was concerned and furthermore no matter how far you stretched the imagination there was no way you could turn Alfie’s paper plane into a jet. But right now, this minute, it appeared both pilot and co-pilot were suffering from special disorientation!

  ‘Where are we?’ Tippy shouted as the paper areoplane glided silently over the heads of the people on the street below.

  ‘Timbuktu or the moon, take your pick!’ Wilbur replied feeling completely out of control of the situation he now found himself in.

  ‘Lean to the right, now back to the middle, now to the left and back to the centre,’ Tippy shouted, taking control of the plane as Wilbur took a back seat.

  ‘Where did you learn to fly?’ Wilbur said sounding impressed at Tippy’s flying skills.

  ‘In my dreams of course, always the best way, far safer than flying in reality,’ Tippy laughed as the wings of the paper plane dipped this way and that as if coming into land.

  Then Tippy seemed to lose her head getting a little over confident, as for some strange reason she thought simply flying an areoplane was too simple so why not try a bit of wing walking?